From Zamel, Cohen and Cavalcanti, Fazio, and also Kepner we can examine that teacher error feedback does not have bad effect as long as some points elaborated
above are closely put into consideration. Zamel suggests that the problems are the inconsistency and that the responses are not systematically prepared and done by
the teachers. Cohen and Cavalcanti further add that the lack of students’
understanding of what need to do after getting the error feedback, the lack of agreement on the separate agenda of teachers and students, and the lack of
understanding towards the expansion of repertoire of strategies learners need to employ as the problems that mostly occur. Furthermore, Fazio declares that the
limited attention students paid to the corrections has made teacher error feedback ineffective to do. No matter how often and how good the feedbacks are, as long as
there is a barrier that caused the students’ attention paid to the corrections is limited, then it would be ineffective.
Kepner strongly recommends that the consistent use of L2 teachers’ written error-
corrections as primary medium for written feedback in L2 writing being ineffective and that it caused the problem arose.
2.5.2 Arguments for Teacher Error Feedback
Ferris 1999, 2006 strongly rejected Truscott’s views, and argued for error
correction to be continued because most students value teachers’ feedback. This
belief was confirmed in Zacharias’ study 2007, where students were found to prefer teacher feedback to other forms of feedback.
Apparently, as the researcher also saw and experienced during the field-practice PPL in 2011, students believed more in the competency of the teachers rather
than their classmates as they were given constructive comments regarding to the grammatical errors of their writing. This is probably because they are also lack of
mastery in English grammar.
In addition, Ferris points out the adverse effects that errors can have on the quality of students’ writing, especially for students who are writing for academic
purposes. As noted by Ferris 1999, grammar errors can jeopardize the overall evaluation of the composition for most academic contexts, as teachers at the
university level are “less tolerant of typical ESL errors than of typical native speaker errors”.
Furthermore, Ferris stresses the importance for learners to develop the habit of revising their own writing. She mentioned that if teachers do not provide an
adequate amount of feedback, it will be extremely difficult for students to revise on their own, even when they perceive the importance of editing.
Fathman and Whalley 1990 further reiterate that revision in and of itself has a positive effect on the quality and accuracy of the
students’ written output. Findings of these studies offer help to writing teachers in making informed
choices in providing feedback to learners.
Ferris, Pezone, Tade, and Tinti 1997 have found significant variation in the teachers’ commentary across different essay assignments given to students with
different proficiency levels. They conclude that teachers’ feedback goes beyond whether a teacher responds to “content” or “form,” instead the substance and form
of teacher responses vary significantly depending upon the genre of writing being considered and the abilities and personality of individual students.
Treglia’s study 2009 shows that students understand and are able to address corrections whether feedback is indirecthedged or direct, assuring writing
teachers that mitigating their comments will not affect the clarity of its intent. In a similar
study, Treglia claims that mitigation serves as a “face-saving” technique and a tool to motivate and engage students actively in the revision process.
Bitchener, Young , and Cameron’s 2005: 313 investigation reveals that direct
oral feedback in combination with direct written feedback did not only have a greater effect than direct written feedback alone on improved accuracy over time,
but it also found that the combined feedback option facilitated improvement in the more “treatable” rule-governed features past simple tense and definite article
than in the less “treatable” feature prepositions. Moreover, they believe that
upper intermediate L2 writers can improve the accuracy of their use of rule- governed linguistic features if they are regularly exposed to oral and written
corrective feedback.
Bitchener and Knoch’s 2008 query on the extent to which different written corrective feedback options direct corrective feedback, written and oral meta-
linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback and written meta-linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback only; no corrective feedback improve
students’ accuracy in the use of two functional uses of the English article system.
The study shows that 1 students who received all three written corrective feedback options outperformed those who did not receive written feedback, 2
students’ level of accuracy was retained over seven weeks, and 3 there was no difference in the extent to which migrant and international students improved the
accuracy of their writing as a result of written corrective feedback.
A number of studies on error correction in L2 writing classes have shown that students receiving error feedback from teachers improve in accuracy over time
Hyland, 2003; Chandler, 2003. Hyland 2003 observed six ESL writers on a full-time 14-week English proficiency program course at a university. It was
found that feedback focusing on form was used by most of the students in their immediate revisions to their drafts and was highly valued by them. The case
studies suggest that some language errors may be “treatable” through feedback.
With experimental and control group data, Chandler 2003 shows that teachers’
feedback on studen ts’ grammatical and lexical errors resulted in a significant
improvement in both accuracy and fluency in subsequent writing of the same type
over the same semester. This finding disproves Truscott’s 1999 claim on the negative effect of error correction on fluency.
Lee 2009 reveals a number of mismatches between teachers’ beliefs and practice in written feedback, namely, 1 teachers pay most attention to language form but
they believe there’s more to good writing than accuracy, 2 teachers mark errors comprehensively although selective marking is preferred, 3 teachers tend to
correct and locate errors for students but believe that through teacher feedback students learn to correct and locate their own errors, 4 teachers use error codes
although they think students have a limited ability to decipher the codes, 5 teachers award scoresgrades to student writing although they are almost certain
that marksgrades draw student attention away from teacher feedback, 6 teachers respond mainly to weakness in student writing although they know that feedback
should cover both strengths and weaknesses, 7 teachers’ written feedback practice allows students little room to take control although teachers think
students learn to take greater responsibility for learning, 8 teachers ask students to do one-shot writing although they think process writing is beneficial, 9
teachers continue to focus on student written errors although they know that mistakes will recur, and 10 teachers continue to mark student writing in the
ways they do although they think their effort does not pay off. In an earlier investigation made by Lee 2004, results show that teachers and students
preferred comprehensive error feedback, and that the students were reliant on teachers in error correction.
2.6 Theoretical Assumption and Hypotheses
